


orpheus rigging your good friends

by joyeuseful



Series: My Destiny Drabbles [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Game: Destiny 2 Spoilers, Game: Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joyeuseful/pseuds/joyeuseful
Summary: The Young Wolf and Crow talk shop... among other things
Relationships: Female Guardian & Crow
Series: My Destiny Drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2163759
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a million thanks to my beta eris. she's my bae who keeps me honest and writing.   
> also i totally wrote this to avoid writing other things.. oops.

The Young Wolf finished listening to the messages from Saladin and Osiris. She understood the threat of Caiatal and her war council well enough. There was no way humanity would be allowed to fall under Cabal rule; she wouldn’t allow it. 

Resting against the H.E.L.M., she took in the sight of the war room. There had been a nagging thought that perhaps life under the Cabal rule wouldn’t be horrible; at the very least, it would be life, unlike if the Winnower and the Hive had their way. For ages, she thought the Fallen would be the ones to ally with humanity first, with Variks and Mithrax understanding that the Traveler had chosen humanity as its final answer, that the Sol system would be where the final conflict between Light and Dark take place, that they would be able to convince the rest of the Fallen to ally. That the Eliksni would come to terms with their abandonment and join humanity in the fight, begin to heal the damage done. There would always be some who could not forgive, such as Saint-14. 

She chuckled. Saladin would forgive Rasputin before Saint forgave the Fallen. 

Looking at the Traveler, she thought of how it had always been there for her. Even when she had lost her light to Ghaul’s attack, it had guided her through a dream to find Hawthorne and, eventually, regain her light. 

How the Fall—no, the Eliksni had been abandoned, how the Whirlwind had taken Riis... She didn’t know if she would have been able to handle seeing it flee in the face of the Black Fleet. To have that loss...

When she thought of losing it like that... the Young Wolf wished Eramis hadn’t been corrupted, that Europa could have become their new home. She wished Eramis could have been an ally, could have worked with Mithrax as part of House Light instead of Darkness. Eramis saw the Traveler abandon Riis, and the Young Wolf could only think she may have had the same reaction to embrace Stasis as the Kell had. 

Maybe listening to Variks speak of his fallen friend was affecting her too much. 

She knew the pain of loss. Her hand drifted to her hip and rested on Ace. At least Cayde-6 had never betrayed his people, had never sacrificed them to the Vex out of rage. There were shady parts of Cayde’s past, before he was a guardian, but she wouldn’t hold that against him. Could never hold it against him. 

What was important was the man she had known, the man who had mentored her to become the hunter she was. 

She had lost Cayde in the Prison of Elders. She hadn’t watched Cayde kill his own people the way Variks had been forced to watch Eramis betray her own. 

She knew some guardians, in name only, who had declared they would kill Variks for causing Cayde’s death, for releasing the prisoners. Variks was as guilty as Petra, who had merely asked for help. The only person who was guilty was Uldren Sov, and he was dead. 

She let out a huff of air. Fucking Mara Sov. Fucking Savathun. Fucking Worm Gods.

Glancing around the H.E.L.M., she saw it was empty except for the two frames. She unbuckled her armour, freeing her arms and chest from the stiff plastisteel. Might be golden age tech, but it could still be heavy, especially with the modifications she had made over the years. It was one of the reasons she didn’t bother with Shards of Galanor anymore. Dying of tetanus had hurt, and ghost had made fun of her. 

“You can survive Oryx, a sadistic wish dragon, Taniks, a mech, the literal heart of darkness, but a rusty blade on your favourite crucible spam armour is what gets you,” was what he had said. 

She had written ‘I am mean to my guardian’ on his shell that evening. He had switched it to that scary kit bashed shell out of spite. He knew how much she hated that ugly thing. 

Unbuckling her helmet, she let it fall to the table with a crash. 

There was an exclamation from the back of the room, and Crow rushed into the room from a set of stairs she hadn’t noticed, his hand resting on the handle of his gun. He took in the sight of her armour scattered around the floor. 

“Oh, I did not realize you were here,” he said, his voice low.

She was glad Osiris had been able to convince him to come to the Tower. It was a pity he had to wear that dreadful mask. 

“I could say the same to you. I thought you would be with Saint or Osiris, not up here.”

“Osiris said that it would be safer for me here. Not many are allowed access to H.E.L.M.” 

The Young Wolf nodded. “If... If you want to go to the Tower proper, I can come with you. I like to think most of the others know not to mess with me or my friends.” She hadn’t realized she was doing it, but she had lifted her hands to Crow’s mask, the tips of her fingers resting lightly on the edges as she began to pull it away.

Crow’s cheeks flushed a darker blue. “I’m honoured to be called your friend.”

She gently set the mask down on the table, much unlike how she had dropped her own armour mere minutes ago. “I’ve had fireteams on occasion, be it job postings or just screwing around in the crucible, but... I don’t know, the Traveler giving you dreams and our quest for Hawkmoon... I just feel a connection, like the Traveler... like she wants us to work together.” She turned towards the window and looked at the Traveler again.

When she called all the guardians back to the city with her light, when she had healed herself, the Young Wolf had wept. 

Seeing that strange, corrupted facsimile of herself in the Black Garden, being within that damned pyramid on the moon... It had shaken her, and then the arrival of the Black Fleet, the ships hovering over Io, Mercury, Mars and Titan had added to the stress. Her faith in the Traveler had wavered, and as if it had sensed it, she had called her children home and healed herself before them, a show of strength in the face of the Darkness. 

“When she repaired herself, could you feel it out in the Reef? Could you feel her calling you home?” She had turned back to Crow. 

He glanced at her before looking out the window himself. “Yes. I used some excuse about fetching Spider some Ether from a Dusk Baron and went to the EDZ. I didn’t see it happen, but I felt it.” He pushed his cowl down and ran his fingers through his hair. “What was it like before she was awake? Before you found the shard on the moon?”

She raised a brow. “I didn’t think you knew about that.” Her eyes closed. “I didn’t know until the shard was freed, but there was an aching loneliness, a desperate sadness through the system. Once we had her back, once she began to heal, it was like... Do you remember your first super activation?”

Crow nodded. 

“To a lesser extent, it was like that, but all the time. I could feel her light burning within me, empowering me. I felt an intense... love. A love of life, of growth. I didn’t understand until I learned more about her, but a love of complexity and all living creatures, but also the sadness of us hurting one another.

“I’ve only felt that hollow, lonely feeling once after and that was when Ghaul caged her. It felt like I lost a part of myself.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. She had never seen him use his abilities. Cayde would be tickled pink if Crow wielded the golden gun as he had. 

Crow sat on the table. She could see him turning his words over before speaking. “You have faith in her.”

The Young Wolf nodded. “I think if I didn’t... trying to wield Stasis would have destroyed me. I have heard the Winnower’s argument, that to have light you need the dark, to have life you need death to give it a point, it just takes it to such an extreme of wanting to wipe out everything.” She held her arms wide, gesturing to the entire system.

Crow’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What’s the Winnower?”

“Oh, I forget that not everyone has the access I do. The Winnower is a different name for the Darkness. I can forward you the messages it sent to me and Eris.”

“The Darkness has communicated directly with you?” His expression changed slightly, becoming more guarded. It wasn’t every day the champion of Light admitted to direct communication with death incarnate. 

“Only once in person.” She touched her cheek. “It wore my face and called itself our salvation, and then it sent its thesis to Eris and I like a cryptarch that can’t take a hint.”

Crow rested his hand on her shoulder. “You have been through a lot.” 

She pursed her lips. “So have you.” 

Some days, she thought about telling him about Uldren Sov, about the man he used to be, but Crow didn’t deserve that. He would think himself a horrible monster, and all he would feel was guilt. Rebirth was rebirth and Crow was not Uldren Sov. She frowned. She was going to beat the shit out of Spider one day for what he did. What would Crow say if he discovered she had been the one to appoint herself Uldren Sov’s judge, jury, and executioner? What would he do to find out the connection between the two of them?

She licked her lips. The morose feeling she got whenever she went to the Tangled Shore was starting to hit her. “Hey, wanna swing by my quarters? I have some booze that isn’t made out of ether there.”

Crow’s lips parted and he looked down towards the city. “I... I do not know.” 

“Wear the mask or we can transmat right in. Ghost is used to me being lazy enough to summon a ship to go half a kilometer.”

“So lazy that you never gave your ghost a name beyond Ghost,” Crow said, putting his mask on with a smile. 

She hurriedly finished divesting herself of her armour, until she stood in her under armour. It could pass for civvies, and no one was going to steal her Wormhusk; it had her initials carved into the back of it, and she would dome anyone who snatched it. 

“I tried to give him a name,” she said, holding up a slightly defensive finger. “None of them suited him.” 

They exited H.E.L.M. and made their way through the Tower. She waved to Banshee-44 who gave her a long look before giving a small, confused wave back. 

“I called him Steve for a bit, he ended up protesting, then there was Popcorn, Hey You, Boasty Ghosty, Potato Salad, Cutie Pie, Young Wolf’s Sass, Bullet, and Gumball before he told me to stop and just call him Ghost. So, I tried, and that’s what’s important.”

Crow chuckled beneath his mask. “Glint got a good name. I’ll have to tell him what your ghost has gone through.”

She stretched her back, her arms over her head. “I don’t know... I heard about a ghost who sounds very much like yours, who ended up with the nickname Pulled Pork.” 

“What is with guardians and food names?” Crow asked, shaking his head. 

“Okay, so, Nkechi-32 told me Pulled Pork got his name because he scanned a pulled pork sandwich for his guardian. So, he either has low opinions for his guardian-to-be, or he’s a little dense.”

“Sounds like something Glint would do.” She could hear Crow’s smile in his voice. 

“I like Glint. He’s sweet.” It was true. Glint was sweet and earnest. That bowl he had given Crow for their first Dawning... Crow ended up with a great ghost. 

“You don’t think Ghost is sweet?”

She scoffed. “Hell no. He’s sassy.” She paused, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. “Usually, I... I don’t talk this much, especially to important people. Sometimes silence just feels safer than saying something wrong, so I have Ghost out there to tell people like Mara Sov to eat a bag of dicks and to stop being useless.” 

Crow stopped. He was so still he could have been part of the wall. “Mara Sov, queen of the Awoken?” 

The Young Wolf nearly stumbled. She had spoken without thinking, without considering Crow’s past life, and hearing him say Mara’s name... She turned, ready to see the face of Uldren Sov, the face of a man she and Petra had shot. Someone who would do anything for his sister.

She didn’t see that, though. She saw Crow’s death mask and his amused eyes beneath it. He had no idea. He had no idea that Mara had been livid with her and Ghost for killing her brother. Crow didn’t know at all. 

She gave a vigorous nod. “That’s the one. Ghost has also sassed Spider and the Drifter like the darling he is.” They descended down to the guardian quarters, and she guided him to her apartment. It was a heavily fortified building due to falling idiots. Some nights she would wake up to the sound of entire fireteams hitting the roof. Hell, she wasn’t one to talk since she had decided on her apartment by throwing herself off and whichever building she landed on would be where she lived.

They entered her home... well, it wasn’t really her home—her ship, the tower were more her home—this was just where she stored her shit that didn’t fit in her vault. The broken Gjallahorn she had scavenged from the destroyed tower stared at her from the barely open closet door. She closed it. 

Walking to her kitchenette, she opened the cupboard to reveal several bottles of Calus’ royal wine that had been pilfered before the Leviathan had drifted off to who knows where. “Wine, made from the finest of ground up centaur-planet things, also known as Nessus.” She passed it to Crow. 

He took his mask off and put it on the counter. Rotating the bottle around, he looked at the imperial markings. “Is this safe?”

“I haven’t died from it yet. Honestly, I will try just about anything except dark ether and radiolaria.” She pulled out two glasses and walked towards her sitting area. “I don’t think I want to be turning into a hobgoblin or something. 

Crow followed and sat across from her while opening the bottle and pouring some of the purple wine for each of them.

“The downside of not being in the Tangled Shore anymore is that we can’t visit the Empty Tank,” Crow mused. 

She chuckled. “You bringing me there was great. I wish the Eliksni there would just let like-minded guardians get hammered with them. Maybe put a guardian as a bouncer on the door to stop any accidental shootings.”

“Well, next time you talk to Spider, you can suggest it.”

“I’m pretty sure next time I see Spider, he’s going to not take any suggestions from me. He’s still bitter about losing you.”

He sat back in his chair and took a sip, his face crinkling at the odd taste. “You like the Eliksni too, don’t you?”

“I...” She rolled the cup in her hands and stared at the liquid. “I feel sympathy for them. I don’t like how many of them I have killed. Variks and Mithrax are... I would like to assume Mithrax is a friend, but even if he isn’t, he is an ally.”

“And Variks?”

She wasn’t surprised that he had heard about Variks. Spider didn’t seem to like him and had probably complained to Crow about the former warden. “He can be tricky, but I like him. I’ve always liked him. Even the way he’s tried to kidnap my ghost back when he was on the Reef was sort of endearing.”

“Oh?” Crow laughed and poured himself some more wine. “Does the Lady Guardian have a crush on an Eliksni?” 

She squinted at him, trying to hide her amusement at how transparent she was sometimes. “It’s only a crush if he doesn’t know about it, and Variks had four eyes and a lot of common sense...” She drank her glass of royal wine and poured herself another. “He’s not the only one I have a crush on.”

“Let me guess.” Crow tapped his chin and then held out a finger. “Lord Shaxx?”

She snorted. “Everyone has a crush on Lord Shaxx. “If you told me you wouldn’t climb him like a mountain, I wouldn’t believe you. And I am technically married to Shaxx.”

“Not just you, though. Anyone who has that bow he offered as a prize.”

“Maybe so. I am still one of his many spouses.”

Crow chewed his lip as he tried to come up with another option. “The Drifter?”

The Young Wolf laughed. “You know, I like him as a friend and maybe as something like a hate-fuck. Like if I wanted to do something nasty, I know he would be down.” 

She rubbed her chin. “No, the person I’m thinking about is... Well they’re in a bit of a vulnerable position, and I’ve helped them out in the past. I am afraid if I said anything, it would potentially be taking advantage of them, that they may feel obligated to like me back based on my previous help. I wouldn’t want to entrap anyone like that.” 

Crow stared at her in silence, his eyes wide before he slowly raised a finger and pointed at himself while mouthing the word ‘me?’

She smiled. “It’s possible, but as I said, I don’t want to do anything that could hurt them, make them feel obligated...”

Crow’s cheeks flushed blue again. “I’m sure they don’t feel an obligation to like you. Perhaps they like you for who you are, one of the greatest guardians alive and a good friend.”

She leaned forward and put a hand on Crow’s knee. “I don’t know. Do you fuck your good friends up the ass?”


	2. Chapter 2

Crow rolled so he was laying face up on the bed, a hand draped across his chest as he attempted to catch his breath. The Young Wolf sat up and smirked. "Good, eh?"

Crow nodded. "Oh yes, very good. What did you say it was called again?"

She took a swig of royal wine and passed it to him. "Pegging."


End file.
